Africa Barrero-Alexander

In his work This Body Was Carved From Stone, Africa Barrero-Alexander reflects on his experience as a transgender man, and how this experience has shaped his life and relationships with others. Questioning his own identity, sense of self, and external expectations has led Barrero-Alexander to develop a complex relationship with gender. The journey that began in his childhood years was externalised once he began his social and medical transition, choosing to show others the person he’s always known himself to be. Through self-portraiture, Barrero-Alexander is learning to carve out a space for himself, within a hostile social landscape which actively rejects and denies his existence and the trans experience.

Barrero-Alexander uses the camera to capture reality as he sees it, recording both physical and emotional changes through the progression of his transition. This Body Was Carved From Stone takes the viewer on Barrero-Alexander’s journey of intensive self-reflection, liberation, and ongoing learning of pride in oneself. Barrero-Alexander is a photographer based in Bristol. His auto-biographical practice looks into the relationship between humanity and the land, the nature of the human condition, and the beauty of the mundane. Barrero-Alexander holds a BA Photography from The University of the West of England.